How to Hire a Hitman (Part 1)
New York, 2008. Today is an unusually cold one, but the sun is shining over the grey servants of Manhattan like a humble god. Even in the early hours, the bustle of cars a thousand years below is palpable. The city which never sleeps is awakened from its restless slumber. Enter Schmidt. Mitt, he declares, going by first name is always preferential. Hence why it's inked on the foremost pages of his résumé. He thinks today will be the turning point of his to-be-long and successful life, though his expectations, like most things, are likely to weave. A baritone of not much but his early morning, his 12 sq foot Brooklyn abode orchestrates his typical breakfast endeavour. Hectare Cove, his proverbial home, is one of East Brooklyn Shambles's finest works. His floor is painted by the mess you'd expect from a man facing the declaration of his future. A man of all things hopeful, his eyes wield spectacles with lenses totally clear. His eyesight is more than 20-20, but the glasses help exemplify his self-proclaimed intellect and intuition. Mitt Schmidt is a tall man; fourfold as long as he is wide, touch him once, it would seem, and he'll crash down. For a giant, his width and appearance say more than any other aspect of his unremarkable persona. Yet, on this Autumnal Tuesday in suburban east Brooklyn, Mitt has his head held high. -- Enter Colombo. Mark Wakefield, if you're one of three persons. Hair bobbed and curtained, protecting a pair of widened, grey eyes. No tie, only an ebony bow knotted threefold, protruding from a shining white of a tuxedo, the kind you'd borrow on the occasion of a birthday for a hated sibling. And above his persona of perceptible invisibility lay one definite factor: this man means business. What that business is, however, stays between three persons. Looking out of his window, he can see the entire suburban New York skyline. At the far edge of his view he can make out the Empire State, in its Manhattan grey, hang above a row of concrete disciples. The city of liberty seems like a fickle wandering from Room 343. It is a zeppelin made of cellophane. Colombo is, today, particularly lavish. His typical minimalist preference is overrun by The Pompidou, whose 343rd room has an unusually pretentious outlook. Fortunately in the line of business, commuting closer is always better. His stead of brief power is broken by the vibrate of his phone. "Mark. I'll see you on Fifth Avenue." No response, between Colombo and the one-of-three-persons on the phone, silence speaks their agreement. He stitches the three-piece of his suit like an apathetic surgeon and a man's fate. His back pocket is notably heavy; why, 7 bullets to the clip require more than finger space. And with the end of his ceremonious ritual, he begins on the long flight of stairs from Room 343 to Fifth Avenue. -- Mitt is nervous about his upcoming venture. Fifth Avenue is only seven miles away from Hectare Cove, but his only form of transport—his lowly bicycle—could make him break a sweat as a changed man. Perhaps a cabby would be nicer. Whipping out the digits of his small box of a phone, in less than three minutes New York's iconic yellow chaperone has arrived. "427 Fifth Avenue, please." And with the twist and churn of a yellow Toyota, the distant blur of some East Coast city folds through the back seat window. Schmidt feels anxious. -- "2nd floor. Room 12." The grandeur of a certain Plaza Hotel seems like an unlikely fit for Colombo's imminent venture. He would have prefered a more minimalist, midtown highrise for recruitment. Alas, Plaza Hotel's "receptionist", Lila Stile, is one of Colombo's closest confidants. "Agent Colombo. 9:12 on the dot. You always were a man of time. You know where to go." Lila says, snappy, giving Colombo his room pass. Who would've known a job interview and shakedown could happen together? Across the Plaza Hotel are Colombo's co-agents; the hotel's management have been tipped off to "take the day off." Little do they know, the entire profile is off-work, including a pay-to-the-mouth manager. "The building's already looted. Boss'll be happy." gave the buzz of Colombo's earpiece. -- It's 9:15 on the dot, not a second later. As he enters the Plaza, Schmidt is greeted by a strikingly-redhead whose incandescent noggin almost resembles a candle, her skin is so clear and white. Strangely, she's black-clad; the whole staff seems to be. The whole hotel seems to be. "Name?" said the candle. Her voice is deep and almost manly. "Mitt Schmidt." "Room 12, Floor 2. A certain ... Simon Smith seems to be waiting for you." Schmidt misses a fleeting devilish grin from the receptionist. He enters the 2nd floor, discovering it to be completely empty. No contesting applicants, not even a single open door. He knocks Room 12. No answer. But guided by personal curiosity, he slips the door open gradually. And he discovers a minute, bearded man, glasses in a knot around a tiny nose, covered by a monolith of a chin and greasy black curls of a fringe, curled up, hostaged, totally speechless, yet visibly awake. Another man, clad in black save for small white cufflinks and neck accents, appears. "Sit." Schmidt abides. He is immediately rendered questionless by the look and aura of this debonair superior; his overwhelming dapperness is undermined by a clever albeit silent and bewitching atmosphere, like a mute British supervillain. "You were here for a job interview with a certain ... Simon Smith. Correct?" he says, apathetic, ruthlessly holding an application booklet. Schmidt remains in pure horror. He cannot conjure the might to speak. "Well you're now part of our shakedown. Anything you do, say, will be part of a joint enterprise." said the man, "I like you. Subordinate. Seem smart too. Tall but narrow. Perfect for this kind of thing, no?" Mitt is still. "I'm Colombo. That's all you will ever know. I'm no Simon Smith," he says, in apparent boredom, "he's right there on the floor. Extremely boring fellow, no resistance. Someone smart like you would end up a log with him. I want to have some fun, boy. The goal of this shakedown isn't just for the money. It's to recruit. And now, since I'm left with not much choice, the other applicants of Simon Smith were uniformly chubby and bespeckled, I hereby appoint you as my associate. It's like the law, see, boy. Except we work in its disdain." "I don't expect you to speak much. The cops'll be here in about ... now." And marking that last word, a distant siren can be heard. "Come with me, boy. Mitt Schmidt, right? Blimey, we need to get you a cooler name." he says, glancing at his overtly-serif résumé. The whole hotel building, in a contrived sort of bedlam, is emptied within moments. Its other occupants are left unaware of what happened this entire half hour. Colombo slams the window open. Schmidt, still processing like a 1990s home computer, is pulled by his supposed boss and shoved towards the threshold. "You good with heights? No?" he asks in apathy, shoving him out of the window. "It's only 19 feet. If Simon Smith can take it, you sure can." Smith, still curdled into a ball, is thrown, thudding like a Luftwaffe on a London sidewalk. Colombo does the same, only like a panther readying its pounce. "You two'll be fine," he says, as he throws them into the back of a jet-black Land Rover. In the background, another hundred or so equally-as-black agents jump out of windows into their equally-as-black escorts. "Agent Colombo. I've been waiting." said a different, deep, orotund voice. Colombo reaches for a neon-lit contraption out of his rear pocket. 'Boss', it reads; and below it is a woman, clad in all white with a black scarf and beret, overhung by a thick fleece of ginger hair. "Who have you brought for me today?" Colombo cuts to Mitt. "Huh. Lanky, he is. Tall, though. The boy looks like a beanpole. Doesn't look too edible though. His eyes are too close together, I don't trust that look. He looks like a right smartass, don't he? Anyway, he'll do. Send him over here. Apiece, this time." Mitt remains motionless, slightly responsive this time at the evident mockery. Suddenly he cuts to the door, and another hunk armoured by a tuxedo and sunglasses yanks him out of the car, like a fisherman and his bait. He lifts Mitt by the shoulder. "Colombo. This is the best you could do?" said hunk said. Mitt is dragged into, what appears to be, a warehouse. Resembling an upturned shoecase, the thing looks like it was buried under sand for a few centuries, only to be rained on by the east coast's usual mood. Every fibre of its moth-eaten roofing was rusted to some degree of decay; and its massive gloomy gates, newer only by the slight lack of sun fading, clank open, revealing a hotel-esque superlab, chock full of pristine white tablets, and paintings vantaging New York's famous hooligans as if they were leading a duchy. "New York just doesn't build them like she used to," Colombo replies. "Senior Stringbean over here looks like her surrogate in-law." "Alright, recruit, welcome to your new home: The Outback." In the time that supposedly passed in the kidnapping, Mitt checks to see if he is in Northern Territories or New York. He is showed around the place as if a visitor at a new kindergarten. "Food in there, drink in there, toilet in there. Sleep there," the guide points to a small pillow and shagged carpet laid out on the floor. "You have no outside contact unless specifically instructed of you. As a cadet, Colombo will personally assign you orders and, should it seem pertinent, you can roam around the facility. It's 300 acres, after all! Any questions?" — Mitt opens his mouth — "No? Great." Mitt is thrown into the cell, and the door is bolted shut. For a man who prior was in ado over employment at a fairly average law firm in midtown Queens, total isolation was never on the agenda. Still equally as befuddled as he is awake, Mitt ponders on whether or not his existence will be intact the next morning. At least he still has his business card, slightly crumpled from the impact of ragdoll from one of the henchmen, albeit as serif as Schmidt would have liked. His three-piece is scratched and tangibly ruined, although his blazer serves as a great blanket in the vast and unheated room.